


Bittersweet

by anti_ela



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:34:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25373971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anti_ela/pseuds/anti_ela
Summary: "Do the Valar separate the Men from the Elves in the Undying Lands?"
Relationships: Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42





	Bittersweet

"What do you say, Elrond?"

"To what?"

"Do the Valar separate the Men from the Elves in the Undying Lands?"

"If they did, how could they divide me? Yet I have heard that it is so, although not from the lips of those who might know."

"Hmm."

"In the Shire, what lands do they say Yavanna keeps?"

"A garden, of course, although one far greater than any patch we tend. With the sweetest blackberries and the largest apples, ever-blooming irises, unchanging leaves." 

"And only Hobbits."

"Just so."

"Yavanna is the wife of Mahal; I cannot believe they are so far removed as that."

"Perhaps."

"Or that they would not be moved by such a love as yours."

"It is only a foolish, small thing that pesters me now and again. It must be nothing to yours."

"Bilbo..."

"It has only been sixty years, and we were never married. No, no songs will tell my tale, friend."

"There is no grief so small that it cannot be shared."

"Oh, dear."

"Tell me about him."

"Oh... He was a brute. Didn't let me go back for my handkerchief, you know."

"Have mine."

"Thank you. Oh. Stubborn and unsubtle and brash. He hardly spoke two words to me that first month but to insult me."

"A month I am sure he felt was wasted."

"But at the end... We did not speak of the future. There was a dragon to be seen to first. And then, well, that end is known."

"To the Valar as well, I am sure."

"He told me, in his sickness, that I was his One. His treasure of treasures. At the time, I thought it was the illness, only now I think he might have been right. That Mahal mistook my soul for a Dwarf's and split me down the middle, too."

"Then how could you be turned away from his Halls?"

"Do you think so? But then, what of my lad? It is all so very much."

"You are known to them, Bilbo Baggins. And I am sure that an accomplished burglar such as yourself can find his own way to visit."

"What a silly thing to talk about. Whatever will we have for tea? That is of far greater importance."

"There was some discussion of strawberry tarts."

"Oh, wonderful. Let us seek them out at once."

"As you wish."

"Elrond?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you."


End file.
